One of the main advantages of having your local business listed in Google Places is that the map listing is usually above the organic listings on the search results when someone is looking for a local business.  It can’t be bad to be at the top of the heap.

This also means that if you come up in the regular local search results you now have more opportunities for someone to click on you.  I know that I look to see if someone comes up more than once in search results.  It helps me feel more confident in the reliability of the business.

Because Google is the search engine that the most people use to find something when they are looking, I will outline the steps to take to fully utilize their local listing service. It can greatly enhance your chance of being found when a person is searching for a local business in Santa Rosa or Rohnert Park.

Locate Your Business Listing or Create It

Google has already gone out and captured information on many businesses.  Your business may already be listed.  To find out, search for your business name with your city and state.  If your business appears, click the link for “More Information.”  There will probably be a link in the upper right hand corner that says, “Business Owner?”  That means that it hasn’t been claimed and verified.

You will need to create a Google account if you don’t have one, or log in if you do, and begin the steps to verify your listing.

If you don’t see your listing go to the Google Business Solutions page, then click the “Google Places” link

Receipt books, estimates, invoices, checks and envelopes.  These are used every day in your business.  Every business, whether they are a large store in downtown Santa Rosa or a small, cottage industry run out of a home in Sebastopol, needs to have the proper business forms.

Client communications and business operations are dependent upon these vital documents.  At Ajalon Printing we offer a wide range of custom, personalized products–checks, labels, envelopes, business forms–to help you start, manage, or grow your business.  You can depend on us to help your business as we have been doing for over 50 years here in Sonoma County.

We offer consulting

We provide consulting services to help you design the most efficient and cost-effective way for you to keep track of all the important processes in your business. Our years of experience can save you time and money when it comes to your business forms.

We offer design services

We have thousands of dollars worth of programs so that we can  design your forms quickly and make them effective for you.  When you have the right form it can make your business run more profitably.  Mistakes are avoided and productivity is improved.  Having the right contract form can save you untold heartache and dollars.

We are local and real people

When you call us, a knowledgeable person answers the phone who is interested in your business, because we live in the same neighborhoods.  You can trust us to provide everything you need with exceptional personal service.  We have been printing business forms for folks in Windsor or Rohnert Park since before they were incorporated cities. We know what we are doing and we care about you.

Old, Traditional and New

We have companies that we have been printing their forms for over 20 years.  We still print lots of carbonless forms, those documents that make multiple copies with no carbon paper.  And if you are ready for the latest in stock inventory and scanning we can provide you with QR codes, allowing quick response  at the speed of a computer.

At Ajalon Printing and Design we are proud of the many businesses we have helped prosper and grow here in Sonoma County by providing  the correct form to aid in running their business.  Join the many business who have learned that they can trust Ajalon to give them their best value in printing.

Written By David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

Every business in Santa Rosa wants to grow.  We have been talking about how businesses in Sonoma County have been using business referral marketing, newsletters and postcards to attract new business.  Often after the initial contact a follow up written on your letterhead is the next step.

With your letterhead and business card you begin building the relationships that will make your business a success.  The image that others form about your company will be influenced by the stationery that you use.  Following are some design secrets that will aid you in creating and using fine business stationery.

Choose a good quality paper

Don’t skip on the paper.  The paper is a small part of the overall business stationery package, usually less than 20%.  Trying to save money here may be penny wise and pound foolish.  Choose a paper that has some cotton content.  The cotton makes the paper feel warmer and appears more professional.

Create a strong logo

Make sure that your company name and logo communicate clearly who you are and what you do.  You don’t want somebody guessing at what you do after they see your name.  You don’t have to spend a lot of money creating a logo. Your business name, set up well, can do the job.

Use a tag line

Your name alone may say it all and your logo, if you have one, may present you as a professional, but using a statement that explains what you do and communicates how that benefits your customer can keep working for you long after your initial contact.

A gardener in Sebastopol had the phrase “Expect Excellence” as part of his business stationery.  I always felt this set the groundwork for what his customers could expect in dealing with him.  A simple tag line can be powerful communicator when used properly.

Create your personal identity

Communicate the appropriate message to your prospective clients. Do they want to know you are licensed, insured, professional, new or old, creative and innovative, a larger, secure corporation or a nimble start up?  Give some thought to the image your real customers will be most attracted to and build that into your letterhead and envelopes.

All businesses communicate with their business stationery.  You want to do it well and appropriately.  Whether you are in Windsor or Rohnert Park, you have competition in your business, use your business card, letterhead and envelopes to distinguish you when you get to that all important presentation of a proposal to do business together.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

Postcard printer in Santa Rosa reveals secrets businesses in Sonoma county have been profiting by using postcards in their marketing plan.

In earlier posts I have indicated how to help your clients remember you by using a printed newsletter.  Now I want to show you how businesses in Rohnert Park or Cotati can keep in touch for even less money.

Postcards can be an even less expensive way to reach out and touch clients and prospects.  Postcards are usually cost less to print than a newsletter and are mailed for less postage.

Newsletters can contain more information than a postcard, and therefore have more ways to connect with a reader.  A postcard on the other hand has a short and sweet message that doesn’t have to be opened in order to be read and has an immediate impact on the receiver.  No delayed gratification here.  From the mailbox to their eyes.

Therefore postcards cut through many of the defenses that consumers have built up against the constant barrage of advertising messages.  Yet there can be enough content to get their attention and deliver your message and call to action.

Postcards also seem to have an ability to be saved more than other mailed pieces.  I know that I will tuck a postcard into a book, put into a briefcase or toss it into a drawer more quickly than I will a letter or flyer.   If I know I might want the information in the future, I am more likely to keep it than a flimsy letter.  Don’t know what it is, but I have more postcards around than old newsletters.

Postcards are less expensive than almost any other printed mailing piece.  There is no envelope and postage is always less than a letter (unless you send an oversize postcard).  Letters mail first class for $0.44 while a traditional size postcard mails for only $0.27 – quite a cost savings.  Using standard mail (for mailings 500 pieces or more) can bring the price down even more.

And you get a 100% guaranteed open rate. No other form of mail can promise that. It has to be read before it is thrown into the circular file.

There is a certain “openness” about postcards.  Unlike letters, you do not have to worry about your mailing being simply thrown out without even opening the envelope.  The customer immediately reads your message.

It is easy for a business in Sebastopol or Healdsburg to send out a postcard to someone in Windsor or Petaluma.  It costs only a little more than a quarter and provides an opportunity to get a personalized message out to someone  asking them to come in and see you or to visit your web site.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

Printing a newsletters can be an excellent marketing tool as it can be used to promote the products and services provided by your local business. A good business newsletter can help to increase business and to make a sale. It may seem strange to you to send your newsletter from Santa Rosa to Sebastopol, but the truth is that if you don’t tell your customers what you are doing, even if you are as close as Rohnert Park and Cotati, they will not likely know.

If you’re stumped on how to write an effective newsletter for your business, then consider utilizing the following strategies.

You should not include each one of these ideas in each newsletter.  Your newsletter needs to be short and readable, not a tome.

• Before you produce the newsletter, you need to determine its purpose. Ask yourself who you’re writing the newsletter for. Since we’re talking about business newsletters, chances are that your readers are customers or potential customers. You want to cater your newsletter specifically to them.
• Remember to always think of your newsletter from your reader’s point of view.  Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”  You can fill a newsletter that really excites you and tells of all your latest accomplishments, but your readers may really be “ho hum” about all this.  They are likely to say, “What does all this mean for me?” Be sure you tell them how what you do can benefit them.
• Consider writing each issue around a theme.  It helps to have a theme that holds each issue together.  It helps your readers and you.  When I focus down into one idea I find that I can write more easily rather than having the whole world to write about.
• Include graphics and photos in the newsletter.  Don’t cram it full of text so that you have paragraph after paragraph with very little white space showing on the page.  It will actually influence your potential readers not to start.
• Include information about your business. Include articles that emphasize company accomplishments and success stories of products sold. Articles such as these help lend credibility to your business. Don’t brag, but do highlight your achievements.

I can think of no better way to keep in touch with your clients and help prospects to remember you are waiting to serve them than by printing a newsletter and mailing it out.  We will continue with 5 more winning strategies on writing top notch newsletters in our next session.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

030209

Calendars

It’s not too late.  You still have time to promote your Sonoma County business with a calendar.

This is a time of year that we are always a little more aware of calendars, usually we are receiving calendars from various sources, our vendors, friends and family. Some of these calendars can have images from around the county with pictures of the Llano de Santa Rosa near Sebastopol or other cities from Windsor to Rohnert Park.

We usually receive these with smiles and put them up on our walls or desks.  As I look around in the office I am working in right now there are two calendars on the wall and one small calendar on a desk.

Often that is as far as we go with calendars.  While we use calendars and appreciate them as gifts, we don’t really consider them as part of our own marketing effort promoting our Sonoma business.  Yet if you consider the fact that one of the goals you have in any marketing message that you send out is that the prospect would keep and remember the piece, you can see the value of a calendar.

What do people do with calendars?  They keep them and refer to them regularly.

When you are thinking about calendars you want to focus on beautiful, unique, and useful.  People are likely to keep and use a calendar if it appeals to them, will make their surroundings more attractive and helps them in their day. What a great opportunity to include one of your favorites photographs from around Santa Rosa.

Your customers will keep a calendar that they like, even if they don’t like you.  Can’t say that about many other marketing pieces.

So calendars are a good way to keep a constant presence before your customer.  In today’s throw away, electronic world an appealing calendar with eye catching pictures is still considered a great give away to customers.  And with digital printing it is easy to create custom calendars in short runs to make calendar giving affordable.

Size doesn’t matter.

Calendars can be big or small.  Starting out with calendars can be very easy with business card size calendars that people can carry in their wallets and purses.  We have customers ask us if we are going to be giving away those small calendars about this time each year. People look forward to using these calendars on a routine basis.

Postcard size calendars can work also.  They can be for the entire year or only have a few months, giving you the opportunity to send out postcards regularly to your clients, keeping in touch with them.

There are a large number of choices with wall calendars.  A calendar can be a single, beautiful picture of some wine country scene, for example,  that would be appealing, with the pages for individual months, that can be easily taken off, attached below.

We are all familiar with the more traditional calendar that has a picture for each month and the pages flip out of the way.  These calendars are a bit more expensive to produce but offer the possibility of a wider variety of images that can make the prospect of hanging the calendar more likely.

Large poster size calendars, often call planning calendars, are also popular and functional.  Many businesses use these calendars in scheduling days off and vacations and they are referred to frequently.  Wouldn’t it be nice if your company logo and contact information were always there reminding them of your services?

And don’t forget that on any calendar you can have reasons for your customers to return to you each month.  You can create a calendar that offers a tear-away coupon or deal that they can use each month.  This can acquaint them with your local Sonoma County services that they may not know you offer or provide you with a chance to promote a new or highly profitable niche in your business.

It’s still not too late to think of calendars even for this year.  Consider the rewards to your business if your clients were given the opportunity to have your company name and contact information available to them because you had given them something they liked and wanted to have around.